Dawn of Red Skies
by Aelaer
Summary: The day started off as any other day for newly-minted Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange. Then the flip switched and the next 48 hours were filled only with grief, anger, and pain. (Not Endgame compliant. Stephen-centric).
1. The Sun Set

_Learning my lesson from other multi-chapter fics, I did not publish this until I finished it. It will be 6 chapters long and updated at least once a week. In brief, the story will be about 30% plot, 30% whump, 25% character introspection, and 15% comfort/banter from friends. While the descriptions can be visceral, the whump won't enter any 'mature only' areas and the warnings will be thorough for those who may need them._

_Written for the Stephen Strange bingo square "role reversal" and for the Bad Things Happen bingo, though the square won't be revealed until the end._

_Important to note: I wrote some parts of this way before Endgame that I didn't really want to rewrite, so the Infinity War ended a bit differently. Along with it being an "everybody lives nobody died" fairytale end of the war, 5 years did not pass (no more than 1, if even that) and the defeat of Thanos involved turning back the clock to before the snap and letting all mortal beings uninvolved in Thanos's final defeat forget that the Snappening ever happened, thus writing over all that universal suffering, as well as not having to worry about the headache of what rebuilding the world probably looked like for the next couple years. That's for another story. Very powerful beings across the universe likely remember but they're not important in this story._

* * *

"_I was walking along the road with two friends. The sun set. I felt a tinge of melancholy. Suddenly the sky became a bloody red... I stood there, trembling with fright. And I felt a loud, unending scream piercing nature."  
_— _Edvard Munch_

A phone rang.

Stephen Strange looked up from his laptop to his cell. When he saw who was calling, he frowned. "Clint?" he asked as he answered.

"Hey Stephen. Uh, do you have a few minutes to give a magical consult?"

He continued to frown. "I thought you were retired."

"Oh yeah, I am! I really am. But the parts I need for the bathroom aren't coming until later in the week…" Stephen put the phone on speaker and set it on the table, lips twitching in amusement as the man rambled. "...and Laura threatened to banish me to the couch if I started another new project without finishing one first. The kids are with their grandparents and Laura went on a spa retreat for a couple days so, yeah, I'm with Nat and Wanda."

"And you all just so happened to come across something magical," he replied dryly.

"Swear to the big man himself, we were just walking down a street in Des Moines when Wanda sensed something behind a window in an antique shop."

Stephen sighed. "Of course."

"Yeah— wait. What do you mean 'of course'?"

"Do you know how much of my time is spent scanning eBay's antiques category? You would not believe the number of mystical relics people have had for generations."

"You're shitting me."

"One of my colleagues claims that the moment eBay really started to take off, Kamar-Taj invested in computers and internet access not too long after Nepal passed their first telecommunications act. I think they managed to find more misplaced magical items that first year than they had in the last twenty."

"Is that why your home looks like a museum?"

"Probably." He put his laptop aside and picked up the phone as he stood. "Describe it to me." He made his way to the room which held a set of shelves with books dedicated to relics and other magical items.

"Uh…" Clint trailed off. "It's a really ugly doll, but it's not a voodoo doll. Sort of resembles a Chihuahua, you know, with the big bulging eyes?" A pause from his end. "Okay, Nat says that's a horrible description and that Chihuahuas are cute. Wanda thinks it looks like Gollum— oh, Nat says it's Gollum with former President Bush's ears."

"Senior or junior?"

"Does that— does that actually matter?"

"Not a bit. Beyond 'not a voodoo doll', all of your details are useless."

"Thanks for that."

Stephen laughed quietly to himself, then clarified, "By description, I meant its magical signature. What does Wanda detect?"

Another pause from his end. "She doesn't think it's Chaos magic. She says it feels almost Druidic in nature but that there's nothing natural in the doll for it to bind to. It's plastic."

He pursed his lips as he examined the bookshelf. "It may be a sort of hybrid that, while uncommon, is not entirely unheard of…" Stephen trailed off as Wong entered the room. His expression was stoic, but something within the downturn of his lips caused the doctor to say, "Give me a minute," and put the phone on hold.

Wong's voice was neutral. "They found her."

His brow furrowed when he left it at that. "Well?"

He didn't answer and a growing dread gathered at the bottom of Stephen's stomach. He placed the phone off hold and kept it short. "I'm going to have to call you back."

* * *

_Her name was Neelufar. 'Call me Neelu,' was her cheerful introduction when she first met him about a week after his arrival to Kamar-Taj four years ago. 'Come eat with me; I heard you were American and I want to know more about America.'_

_They ate together once or twice a week after that. She learned more about America (she thought the idea of free soda refills was absolutely spectacular, but did not like how many meals were 'to go' and on the run). He learned more about her former part of the world (she once lived in a city in modern-day Iran, but called herself Persian. He learned there were over a dozen different peoples in Iran after he asked what the difference was)._

Kamar-Taj was a relatively large complex that did not entirely obey the laws of physics. The surrounding traffic within the markets of Kathmandu were completely unheard in the two central courtyards, for one thing. Connected to the Master's section of the library was the room that held the Orb of Agamotto, hovering above a space that had doorways that led to Hong Kong, New York, and London. In the basement just under the main section of the library was a long passageway that spit its travellers out of a cave located in Tibet.

The cave entrance spilled out onto a barren bluff within the lower folds of the Himalayas. With the nearest village being a good half-day and several ridges away, and with no easy footpaths to reach its heights, the location was one that many in Kamar-Taj went to for peace and solitude. During the winter the high bluff was bitterly cold, but now it was late spring and the wild grasses were filled with blooms that engulfed the green with violet, pale yellow, and deep blue.

It was here that the Masters of the Mystic Arts buried, cremated, or otherwise honored their dead.

Near every sorcerer, master to apprentice, was gathered to pay their respects to the enshrouded body lying within the simple coffin. Only those that otherwise were on duty were not present. Wildflowers arranged in small bouquets of blue poppies, edelweisses, irises, and more that Stephen could not name were laid on the low flat stone upon which the coffin rested.

_Stephen learned a bit more about her once he realized that Google Translate was absolute shit at translating Sanskrit (and when he discovered that not only was there more than one language with the word 'Sanskrit' in it, but that one of them was dead). It turned out that Neelu was a genius with languages._

'_How many languages do you know?' he asked._

_He didn't remember her entire answer anymore, but Neelu spoke a good half-dozen languages fluently and was comfortable with another dozen more. She could read and write in all the primary languages that filled the libraries at Kamar-Taj and the Hong Kong Sanctum, the latter of which she usually spent her days._

'_I am working on translating all the books in the Hong Kong Sanctum to Cantonese first,' she once told him. 'Li is very good at English and wants to try to translate my translations after.'_

'_Can you translate my books?' he half joked._

'_If Master Wong is already giving you advanced studies, then I will not be able to translate fast enough. It will be easier for you in the future if you learn Vedic and Classical Sanskrit now.'_

This was not the first funeral he attended during his time in Kamar-Taj, but it was one of the few that hit Stephen in a way that made him feel a bit physically ill.

Maybe it was due to her age (32— he learned that today). Maybe it was due to knowing her since the beginning.

Maybe it was because Neelu's was the first death since he had been named Sorcerer Supreme. Maybe it was due to the manner of her death.

"_A mugging gone wrong?" Stephen repeated. Beside him, Master Tina Minoru of the Hong Kong Sanctum pressed her lips into a very tight line._

"_That's what it appears like," answered Hamir. He had taken the initiative to find her after it became clear that she had not been seen by anyone for over 48 hours (and only after a rather heated discussion that involved convincing Minoru he was better suited to the task; if the other Master had not been dealing with a bad case of interdimensional harpies in the Philippines, it may have gone very differently). "A blow to her head. All of her jewelry is missing. There were no signs of any magical or otherworldly interference."_

"_So some lowlife snuck up behind her and hit her so hard that he killed her?" he asked in disbelief. How could she be dead? From a mugger of all things? _

_Hamir frowned. "What is stranger is where she was found."_

"_Where was she?" Minoru asked, her patience at its end._

_The elder man looked at Stephen as he answered, "She was discovered in an alley twelve blocks north of the New York Sanctum."_

The funerals in Kamar-Taj followed the customs and culture of the individual being put to rest. If those were unknown, they were usually cremated.

Neelu followed the Bahá'í Faith. As such, she was left unembalmed, washed, enshrouded in white silk, given a specific burial ring, and laid within a hard wooden coffin. She was to be buried with her head towards Qiblih (located in modern day northern Israel, he discovered). As sorcerers, they were able to make the rectangular hole point towards the exact geographical location.

The preciseness wasn't much of a comfort.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of their order, some of the customs were impractical. After seeing her body for himself, he went to the Bahá'í Center in NYC (located just up the road on 11th— and only a few blocks away from where Neelu was discovered, which left him unsettled with both fury and sorrow).

According to the counselor there, she was to be buried 'within an hour's journey of where she died'. He, being him, asked, 'An hour by foot? By car?' and was told it did not matter. Sling rings, while they followed the letter of this law, outright laughed at the spirit in which this law was written; however, to deal with an American cemetery meant dealing with American authorities, which simply could not happen. In the end, Stephen figured she would prefer to be buried somewhere familiar instead of a country she did not really know.

It was the least he could do for her.

_One day he caught her sleeves rolled up. Her left arm was covered in terrible contracture scars, blotches of white and red that looked like the remnants of some sort of chemical burn. He did not turn away in time before she caught his look of surprise. _

"_They found out I was Bahá'í," was her answer, which didn't answer anything for him. She smiled at his confusion. "It is a religion, though the government of Iran has never recognized it as so. We have been persecuted since the Revolution, but we try. Some are very brave and stay there openly. I am not that brave."_

"_No one would blame you for leaving to survive," he told Neelu._

_She did not answer._

Unfortunately they had no other practitioners of the Bahá'í Faith within their ranks, and it would be in especially poor form to push a celebrant through a portal to read the required Prayer for the Dead, no matter how well-intentioned they were. She probably would have found that image quite funny.

As such, he had to come to a compromise regarding the required recital. He eventually settled on a recording of the prayer in Persian (her native tongue) to be played just before the coffin was lowered.

The service was simple; as was expected of him, he opened it with a few somber words about her being taken too soon, before speaking of the traits she was well known for: her wit, her drive for knowledge, and her great openness and kindness for all living creatures (of this world and others).

Stephen kept his own speech short before turning it over to Minoru, one of her immediate superiors and a Master who had worked with Neelu on a regular basis. She was always in Hong Kong or Kathmandu and had not traveled much elsewhere.

Certainly not to New York.

"_Do you have any idea what she was doing in New York?" Stephen asked as they passed through the doors that led back to Kamar-Taj._

_Minoru shook her head. "She had no reason to be there. I do not believe she has—" she paused, swallowed, then corrected, "had visited the New York Sanctum more than half-a-dozen times in the last few years, and I believe all occasions were to consult with you, Doctor."_

"_She would not leave the Sanctum," Hamir added._

"_Not usually," he muttered in agreement as they came to the staircase that led to the cellars underneath the compound. They descended, then passed a few closed doors before entering the small stone room in which she was being kept. Stephen paused at the shroud before lifting it back to reveal her face. His shoulders slumped at the sight of the slack, lifeless expression. It wasn't Neelu anymore, not like this._

_He did not bother to conduct his own magical examination; he trusted Hamir's findings and the trauma to the head was clearly a fatal wound. Sighing softly, he began to lift the shroud back up, then suddenly paused and brought it down again to her collarbone, frowning._

"_Doctor Strange?"_

_Stephen continued to frown as he answered Minoru, "I was no pathologist, but I remember the stages of death well enough. Temperatures have been moderate in New York this week…" He pulled the shroud down to her waist and looked at her abdomen; his frown only deepened. As he raised the sheet back to her collarbone, he said, "Putrefaction has not started."_

_Minoru stared at him. "And that means?"_

_Instead of immediately answering, he asked them, "She was missing for two days before the search began for her, and it took another twelve, sixteen hours to find her?"_

_Hamir nodded, expression hard. "We were having a difficult time finding her magical signature. We suspected some sort of sorcery at work, but her body and the place she was found bore no signs of other magics. However, we were concentrating primarily within Kathmandu and Hong Kong at the beginning of the search, so perhaps it was a matter of distance." He did not sound convinced._

_"Distance shouldn't have been an issue," Minoru replied. "There is something we are not seeing."_

"_I agree," Stephen said. "We're missing something." His gaze turned to Hamir. "It makes sense that you looked for her where you did, Hamir; I would have done the same. What doesn't make sense," and he turned back to look down at the face that once greeted him so kindly, "is that she was last seen somewhere over sixty hours ago, but has been dead for a few hours at most."_

"_What?" Minoru's expression grew harder._

_He gestured to Neelu's face, then the rest of her. "Rigor mortis is only just setting in. It hasn't overtaken her whole body yet, and if she had died soon after going missing, she should be within the putrefaction process. She is nowhere near it."_

_Minoru stepped closer and stared hard at the dead woman who was once a core part of her Sanctum. "Two days unaccounted for."_

_Stephen stared at Neelu's expressionless features._ Where did you go? _Her expressionless face gave him no answers._

Neelu's friends and colleagues came up one by one to offer a few words about the woman. The sun slowly crossed the sky as the ceremony continued, and it was not until after the noon hour that the last of the speakers finished.

Stephen turned on the recording of the Prayer for the Dead, sound amplified so it echoed across the bluff. Throughout the next four minutes a haunting Persian chant vibrated about them, the speaker's sorrowful hymns calling upon God to bless she that has passed from this world and to accept her into the next.

When the chant ended, he nodded once to Hamir and Minoru and they levitated the coffin to place it within her final resting place. Each sorcerer then gathered dirt within their hands to throw upon the closed wood before the masters present finished filling it by their usual means. Minoru placed the headstone, into which Stephen had earlier carved her name, days of birth and death, and the nine-pointed star with the Persian writing of 'Bahá'í' enclosed.

With the headstone settled and the last of the dirt set, those gathered began to slowly disperse, either climbing the low slope towards the cave to head back to Kamar-Taj or creating portals to go back to the Sanctums. Soon he, Minoru, Hamir, and her closest friends were the only ones remaining. A soft sob came from one of the women at the graveside.

"I best see to Kamar-Taj," Stephen murmured to the remaining masters. A couple wordless nods, and he took one last look before turning his back upon the newest addition to the small cemetery, the light-colored headstone shining bright under the early afternoon sun set in a cloudless spring sky.

* * *

_And now, the overly long endnotes._

_Re: The first bit of the story. There is no way that the Masters of the Mystic Arts own property in two of the most expensive cities in the world and do not have a general fund stockpiled over the centuries for general "business" expenses (though that doesn't mean that the individual sorcerers in the Sanctum are at all wealthy of course). I'm also convinced that the Ancient One bought stock when she had a good feeling just for the purpose of making sure they'd never have to worry about making tax payments. :P They probably saved hundreds of rare Chinese artifacts during the revolution and can sell them anonymously in auction. Those robes they wear are really good quality too! So yeah. They buy magical relics when they find them for sale in the wild, in most cases. I need to write a case where there's one in Sotheby's…._

_When I started this story, I knew that it was gonna start with a funeral. The problem with building up an OC so that they have some sort of emotional impact when they're dead is that, by the time you're done building them up, you really don't want them to be dead. Sorry Neelu (and sorry Stephen)._

_The cellar that leads to Tibet was definitely playing on the fact that Kamar-Taj in the comics is within the Himalayas in Tibet._

_I've never had the chance to meet someone of the Bahá'í Faith (considering it's such a small religion), but what I learned of it for this story was very interesting and enlightening. Different sources told me different things regarding the make of coffin and if the head or feet point towards Qiblih. I am unfortunately uncertain which is more 'accurate' or if both are accepted in modern times, as both sources were several decades old._

_The New York City Bahá'í Center is really located about 9 blocks northwest of where the New York Sanctum would be. I chose the OC's religion weeks before discovering this detail. I can't make this stuff up._

_I knew someone who was Persian in uni (not Iranian, but Persian— was quite clear) and met someone in Spain who had fled Iran for religious persecution. They both inspired Neelu, though thankfully neither of them were harmed in any way that I was aware of. Meeting both of them led to an increased interest in Iran and its very vibrant history and multitude of cultures, though unfortunately the details of the Iranian government and its current view on the Bahá'í Faith are based on fact rather than fiction._


	2. Inside Out

"_Red, of course, is the colour of the interior of our bodies. In a way it's inside out, red."_

— _Anish Kapoor_

There was a nine hour and 45 minute gap between New York and Kathmandu in the spring (_not even a proper rounded 10 hours because Nepal is contrary like that_, grumbled his tired mind). That meant that by the time the service finished in the early afternoon in central Asia, it was just after 4:30am in New York.

He sighed as he left the hall and looked out the window to the dark skies surrounding the metropolis. The very first twilight of dawn was just starting to brighten the sky in the east; some people would already be heading into the city to beat the rush hour crowds both coming to and from Manhattan during working hours.

Crazy to think that he was just like them four short years ago.

A bit of fluttering from behind stirred him from his thoughts; the cloak did not know what to make of his mood. "I'm fine, just tired," he murmured. "I won't need you for a while." Permission granted, the cloak carefully removed itself from his shoulders and floated down the hall until it was out of sight. It liked to wander around the Sanctum and he gave the relic as much time as he could spare to do it.

Stephen looked over his shoulder when he heard someone coming down the hall from the Kamar-Taj entrance. It was Wong. No words were spoken by his friend, but he knew him well enough to know the sorrow behind his stoic expression.

When Wong did speak, he said, "You're on New York time, aren't you?"

He was pretty sure Wong already knew the answer to that question. "I can't sleep yet," he said. "But I'm not sure I can concentrate on anything well enough to get actual work done."

The librarian took a step closer. "Work can wait for a few hours. I'll put on some tea."

Stephen wordlessly followed Wong into the kitchen and let the man do his thing. He was very particular with tea: loose leaf and traditionally made (in other words, without magic) was the only way he took it. The librarian claimed it tasted funny when magic was involved; he personally did not taste any difference.

And so he sat at the kitchen table, shaking hands clasped loosely together as he waited for Wong to do his tea thing. Maybe it was a sort of relaxation technique for him. He had no idea, and now was not the time to ask.

His hands shook a bit more than usual. Emotion. Exhaustion. Likely both.

A cup filled three-quarters full was placed at his knuckles. With a word of murmured thanks, Stephen took the cup but made no move to drink it.

"Drink, Stephen," Wong said after a few minutes of silence between them. "I didn't make that so you could waste perfectly good tea."

"The horror," he said, but the quip came out tired and half-heartedly. He did, however, drink a couple mouthfuls when Wong's look didn't relent. "Don't you have someone else to mother hen?" Again, he sounded more tired than anything.

"Not at the moment," was his flat reply.

Stephen sighed, and the silence fell again across the kitchen, interrupted only by the occasional, quiet sip from either of them.

Wong placed his empty cup down some several minutes later. "I will start looking into the existence of items, spells, and potential dimensions that might make a person untraceable by usual means."

"Hamir found no evidence of magical interference," he reminded him, because he was certain Wong already knew this.

"The item, dimension, or spell may be one that cannot be traced. Those are very rare, but not impossible."

"Or she just took a little vacation and got killed at the end of it!" Stephen exclaimed, slamming his hands down against the table (and resolutely ignoring the ache that emotional outburst caused). He swallowed and added, "A little vacation in my city, under my watch, and murdered by a vile bastard of a human being motivated by simple greed."

Wong gave him a firm look. "Do not think the blame lies on your shoulders, Strange."

Stephen did not reply and let the silence rest between them again. Eventually he finished off his tea and looked down at the table. "Have you ever had a pierogi?"

Wong didn't answer immediately. Stephen didn't look up to see the expression on his face.

"Don't think so," was the eventual answer.

"You should. There's this great 24-hour Ukrainian restaurant on 2nd and 9th. They make really great pierogies. Good potato pancakes, too."

He carefully lifted his eyes from the table. Wong was giving him an even look. "I'm not going to sleep anytime soon and I need to eat," he said in reply to the look.

"2nd and 9th is a bit of a walk for food."

"I need a bit of a walk." He stood and waved a hand at himself to apply a glamour spell over his robes so it appeared he was wearing a dark jacket over a navy blue, high collared sweater. "I'll call ahead for the food. Won't even take me an hour to get back here, and that's only if I'm too busy eating all the pierogies on the walk back."

Wong pursed his lips together. "I have better things to do in Kamar-Taj. But I'll be back here in an hour if you promise to bring enough food to share."

"I was offering, wasn't I?" he retorted as he turned to head for the door.

"Stephen." The doctor paused to look over his shoulder. "I know you're deflecting."

"Absolutely no idea what you're talking about," he answered, and with that, left the kitchen.

The cloak hovered in the foyer near the door. After all this time, he still had no idea how it knew when he planned to leave the Sanctum; it just _did_. This time, though, he waved it off. "Pretending to be completely normal. I'll see you in a bit." The cloak turned and floated away (probably to go to the room with the everlasting fire within the hearth; the enchanted piece of cloth was quite fond of warmth).

The early morning fog still sat heavily across Greenwich Village, leaving lingering dewdrops on Stephen's jacket as he made his way east towards 2nd and 9th. What early-morning New Yorkers were up ignored him; delivery men carefully backed their trucks into narrow parking spots adjacent to the sidewalk, dog-walkers kept their pets of all sizes going at a brisk pace, and businessmen and women chatted into barely-visible wireless earbuds about everything and nothing.

It must be nice. On days like this, sometimes, he just thought… sometimes it must be nice to not have the fate of the world on your shoulders.

Sometimes he missed it.

Stephen grimaced to himself and forced his thoughts elsewhere.

Predictably, they went back to Neelu and the funeral. Guilt gnawed at the bottom of his stomach and crawled its way up his ribcage to reach his throat and choke him. Sorcerer Supreme for a couple months and already one of his charges was dead, and dead from mundane causes. The knowledge that he had failed consumed his mind and the details of the passing street began to turn into a blur.

It was when he nearly ran over a woman walking her two corgis ("Sorry, I'm so sorry, are you alright? Good, good, again I'm so sorry...") that Stephen realized he _needed_ to move his thoughts elsewhere. His guilt would do nothing except perhaps cause him to collide into more New Yorkers. He forced himself to consider Wong's words instead.

There were certainly items and places that could make someone untraceable by magic. The issue with the theory was that Neelu had absolutely no business being anywhere near such items or places. She was a _translator_, for God's sake.

_She had no business being on the streets of New York, either_, said another part of his mind, and he _couldn't_ think about this anymore. He was too tired and too grieved to accomplish any productive thinking during this walk.

Speaking of. He did tell Wong he would call ahead. With a new task at mind, Stephen reached into his pocket—

—and realized he had left his cell phone at the Sanctum.

Damn it all.

It wasn't entirely his fault. He was potentially the only person in New York City that had his phone less often on him than not. Along with texting being hardly worth the effort half the time, he usually spoke to the other members of the order face-to-face. Most sorcerers had phones, of course, but generally speaking they were not widely needed when finding someone was a simple portal away. The majority of his conversations on the phone were with the Avengers and other allies of a hero-ish nature. A handful of old medical colleagues made the rest of the list.

Besides that, it was stupidly easy to get a phone ruined in a day's work. Tony had immediately replaced his phone the first time it was unsalvageable, which was nice of him.

('I don't want your charity, Tony,' he had protested.

'How else am I supposed to reach you when a big magic Cthulhu pops up in the Hudson? Owl post?'

'I have an eye on the magical pulse of the world and would notice anything major—'

'Take the damn phone before I decide to stuff a truck-full of them down your chimney instead.')

But he really didn't want to deal with the hassle. Ergo, no phone when dealing with more messy extra-dimensional creatures. Unfortunately that meant he often forgot it during more mundane outings.

So he wouldn't be pre-ordering the food. That was fine. It was unlikely to be busy at this time of day, anyway.

Stephen turned out to be correct. While there were a handful of early risers (locals, it looked like) in the restaurant, it was mostly empty this early in the morning. The sun was still a good half hour away, with only the first streaks of orange and red currently lightening the horizon.

Because of this, he managed to get in and out with his order of pierogies in less than fifteen minutes. By the time he had the food, his stomach was protesting its lack of meals since the morning before. He opened up the bag and dug in.

It turned out that pierogies were very good for a tired and grieving soul. Before five minutes had passed, he had scoffed down three of them.

In his defense, they were really very good.

Bless the people of New York; no one batted an eye at him walking and eating pierogies at dawn. He imagined that he could walk in his robes and be mostly ignored, too, but unlike the Ancient One, he did like to blend in as much as possible with the crowd when he could. He was little interested in drawing undue attention.

After the fourth pierogi, he forced himself to stop and make sure there were enough for him to eat with Wong at the table. _Then again_, he mused, _if I eat my share now, I can avoid the conversation he was hinting at._

That just made Stephen think of Neelu again, and his temporarily raised spirits sunk once more. He eyed the bag of food; maybe it was time for a fifth one. Food was distracting, and distracting was good.

As he debated internally (and very purposefully) about the issue of pierogies, he heard a female voice shout from the right. He quickly focused and realized the voice was coming from a narrow side street just a few feet ahead. "Help! Help, someone, please!" was the clear call.

Stephen hurried his steps, magic crackling at his fingertips as he came to the alley. Dawn's light did not quite reach through the majority of the narrow road, but he was able to make out a woman kneeling beside a fallen man, shaking his arm as she cried, "Henry! Help, someone!"

He quickly left the main sidewalk and crossed the short distance between them. Upon approach, the details of the scene became clearer. The woman was somewhere in her 30s, fit, and dressed in business-casual. She looked distressed, but seemed otherwise unharmed. The fallen man was of a similar appearance to his companion in both style and physique and bore no obvious wounds. There were no eldritch monsters, no dimensional rifts, and not even any petty thugs. The magic fell from his fingertips as instead his medical mind took over. "What happened?" Stephen asked as he knelt beside the man, placing his breakfast aside.

"I— I don't know, he just— he just collapsed!" the woman sobbed. "Henry!"

The former surgeon carefully turned the man from where he laid partially on his side to instead lay completely on his back and gave him a quick once-over. Still breathing, and no belt or tight collar that needed loosening. Small mercies. "How long ago did he collapse?" He reached for the man's wrist to take his pulse.

He caught the woman shaking her head. She seemed to be calming down a bit and was now reaching for her fallen purse. "I— I don't know, he just— he just fainted."

Best not to take chances. "Call 911," he said, and then tuned her out to keep track of the man's heartbeat. His brow furrowed as he counted; his pulse seemed completely normal for his age and body type, which was admittedly unexpected considering his current state.

Stephen saw her withdraw her arm from her purse in his peripheral vision. He began to focus again on her as he asked, "Does he have any known medical conditions?"

By the time he realized she was not holding a cell phone, it was already too late. A sharp, agonizing pain coursed through his entire body and he fell to the side as his leg collapsed under him. His eyesight blurred and his tongue lolled uselessly in his mouth. Every one of his nerve endings burned; it felt as if his hands were on fire.

The doctor could not make out many details, but he was pretty certain that the supposedly unconscious man had picked himself off the ground and was now pressing his hands against his upper arm and the side of his face. Stephen's head was held still against the pavement as the woman reached for him again, but his sight remained too blurry to distinguish beyond that.

He felt a small sting in his neck, and soon he knew no more.

* * *

_He was gonna get Thai at first, but Google revealed no 24-hour Thai places in a 1.5 mile radius. So he went to the infamous Ukrainian place that is open instead. Good ol' NYC._

_I was quite bummed to discover that my favorite 'jab someone in the neck for instant knockout' was complete Hollywood fiction and waffled a bit on whether to change the ending or not. Then the Spider-Man Far From Home trailer came out and look, there goes Ned instantly passed out from a little dart to the neck. So yeah, in the MCU, HYDRA or S.H.I.E.L.D (or HYDRA as S.H.I.E.L.D) invented this. Thanks MCU!_

_Red is a theme that ran consistently through the story. It's an incredible color that has a variety of meanings that range across an emotional spectrum. I wish I could say that I added red on purpose from the beginning, but its presence was not something I realized (despite an illustration coming in a couple chapters that featured ONLY the color red!) until I was finishing it up and scrambling for a title of some sort. That is where the inspiration for the quotes came from. The chapter titles come from the quotes. The story title was cobbled together after reading through dozens of red-related lyrics._


	3. Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw

Chapter 3: Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw

As mentioned, this story does its best not to enter the M region of violence, but it still can be visceral in some places due to my writing style. If you have sensitivities to certain acts of violence, please read the end-chapter notes for the specific warnings before reading onward.

I hope y'all enjoy the chapter.

* * *

_Who trusted God was love indeed  
__And love Creation's final law  
__Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw  
__With ravine, shriek'd against his creed  
_— _Alfred, Lord Tennyson_

As he came to, the first sensation to register across his consciousness was, unsurprisingly, feeling. His hands seemed a bit more sensitive than usual; involuntary twitches shot up his fingers at regular intervals, causing the muscles to spasm. It was more of an inconvenience than anything; when his hands acted up, they sometimes slowed him down. It certainly made drinking tea much more of a pain (both figuratively and literally) than it should ever be.

However, he felt soreness encompassing his entire body— as if he had gone through something incredibly rigorous, like a triathlon. He did not recall participating in a triathlon; he was pretty sure he would remember that.

The second sense to make it through was smell; it was the stench that warned his foggy mind that not all was well here. When he woke up in the Sanctum, he was used to a clean, woodsy smell infused with the barest hint of his favorite Chinese teas (having more or less permanently permeated the air due to how often he had a cup in the early morning or late evening). Now, though, now he smelled an old dampness that spoke of mold and concrete, like that one spring a nasty outbreak of black mold had overtaken their basement in his childhood home in Nebraska.

Taste came next. Copper; at some point he had bitten down and broken skin.

Sound gave away nothing. It was silent.

Stephen Strange forced his heavy eyelids open and was met with a drab, grey concrete wall. He blinked several times and wracked his brain for his last memories. Where was he and why was he so sore?

His mind was sluggish and unusually slow in recalling details, but they started to trickle in. Phone call. Kamar-Taj. Funeral. Then… he was back in New York… he was out, definitely out, yes. Pierogies. What had happened…?

As the last few moments before he lost consciousness came back to Stephen's memory, his eyes grew wide in realization. He moved to push himself up; that was when he noticed a heavy weight about his neck. Shaking hands were brought up and they carefully prodded at the heavy metal workings firmly secured there.

A collar. He was wearing a collar, and a thick one at that. He could not see it, of course, but as he brought his hand away from his neck he noticed it was partially illuminated by a small red light that had to be located on the metallic device.

Stephen's mind raced. It wasn't connected to anything and had no sort of hook for a chain or something equally chilling, but the collar seemed to be high tech and hiding something intricate under its bulky plate casings. _What could be its pur—_

A sudden thought came to mind that chilled him to the core. He raised his hand to make a quick mandala.

His hand remained unchanging: slightly quivering and bereft of magic.

_Oh God._

He tried a few other spells of various sorts, including an attempt at astral projection, with the same result. Somehow, with technology Stephen did not think possible, the collar prevented him from channeling dimensional energy to create any sort of spell.

The rest of his surroundings painted more trouble for an already very bleak situation. He found himself in a concrete chamber that measured about 12 by 15 feet. Someone had deposited him on an incredibly unhygienic-looking mattress that made the doctor in him grimace. Besides the poor excuse for bedding, there was an old metal toilet and sink across from him and a heavy metal door at the far end of the room. A chain link was locked to a metal loop in the floor and snaked across the concrete until it met the manacle on his ankle. It was rather medieval compared to the collar— and the camera above the doorway, which blinked with a little red recording light.

_Wonderful_.

Stephen looked down at himself. The glamour spell was no longer working, of course, leaving him shorn in his Kamar-Taj wear— or what was left of it. His captors had stripped him of all outerwear, leaving him only in his long hemp fiber shirt and denim pants. They had even taken his boots and socks, for reasons he refused to think about. The collar was bad enough; there was no need to consider just how terrible this could become.

He took a deep breath. This was not ideal in the slightest, but he had been in many worse situations. This wasn't Dormammu. This wasn't Thanos. This was just (likely) a bunch of average (though morally bereft) people who would make life unpleasant for a little while, but Wong would notice his absence quickly. He would alert the appropriate parties and finding him should be a matter of taking some hair from his brush. Simple.

With that encouraging thought, Stephen folded himself into the lotus position and began to meditate to calm his breathing further and regain his strength for what trials he may need to endure before someone plucked him out of there.

* * *

He did not have to wait long for attention. No more than ten minutes had passed since he woke when he heard the locking mechanism on the door clink; it swung open and two armed men stepped into the room. Stephen opened his eyes and looked at them, but otherwise did not move.

"Stand up! Hands behind your head," one of them barked.

He briefly considered saying something in retort, but decided it was not worthy of whatever petty retaliation they might give. Instead he slowly rose to stand beside the mattress and placed his shaky hands behind his head.

"Turn around and kneel," was his next command.

Stephen allowed himself a small frown, but banished the eye roll. Now was hardly the time. Instead he did as ordered, the only sound coming from him being the soft clinking of the chain attached to his ankle as he moved.

Something hard and cold was pressed against the back of his head; _a gun barrel_, he realized. He focused on his breathing. _Remain calm. Find your center._

The cuff on his ankle was jostled a bit before suddenly it was removed. He was then pulled to his feet; the barrel left his head.

Each man had a hand on one shoulder and his upper arm; they steered him out of the cell into a windowless hallway. It seemed to be underground somewhere, though much of what he passed looked the same: concrete walls, metal doors, and cold hard floors against his bare feet. The light fixtures were a mix of lonely old bulbs and ugly modern fluorescents. Beyond that, he had no clue as to where he was being held and who the hell was holding him in the first place.

After a couple minutes, they stopped at a door that looked just like all the others. It was opened and he was forced into the room.

He took a quick look around: there was a heavy steel chair in the center of the room, a steel table against the side wall, sturdy containers on it, and a stool beside it. The room was made up of windowless bare walls and a concrete floor with a drain sitting in its center.

It wasn't a welcoming sight.

Stephen was shoved down into the metal chair and his arms were held as they were secured behind the back of it with a pair of heavy cuffs. His hands began to complain from the weight against his fragile wrists; a few hours of gravity's pull against them would be nigh unbearable.

Not that he had any choice in the matter.

Once he was secured, the guards stood on either side of him and waited.

It wasn't a long wait. Only a couple minutes passed before the door opened again to let in another; it was the woman from the alley.

Stephen clenched his jaw as he recognized her. Gone was the frantic, half-panicked office worker and in her place was a confident and collected officer, face completely blank of all emotion. Her light hair was now pulled up into a bun, but she still wore the same clothing, appearing as if she were meeting a business client rather than a captive. He said nothing, but his bright gaze followed her as she settled on the stool and set down a manila folder on the table. She opened the folder to review its contents and let the silence sit for a moment.

He knew a power play when he saw one.

Instead of folding to questions (or begging, as he supposed other poor souls would do if they did not have his life's experiences) Stephen remained silent. His gaze remained solely upon her while his mind again went to a half-meditative state, drawing his thoughts away from the growing ache of his wrists and hands and purposely fixing upon his memory of some of the more difficult texts he had been working with the last couple of weeks.

Eventually his captor realized that the play was not going to work with him, for she closed the folder and turned to face him. "Doctor Strange."

He kept his voice carefully neutral. "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage. You seem to know me and I cannot say we've ever met."

"We haven't," she answered. Her tone was polite and distant. "Not before today, at any rate."

"To what do I owe the honor?" The caustic bite in his tone slipped in without his permission. _Keep the sarcasm on the down low, moron._

Thankfully he received no retaliation for his wit. She remained polite and distant as she answered, "We needed to chat. You can be difficult to get a hold of; it was quite fortunate you stepped out for breakfast this morning."

So they have had some sort of eye on him for some time. Obviously they had, what with the measures they had in place to contain him, not to mention how they baited him. "So you created a trap to take advantage of a doctor's instinct to help. Was that a taser you attacked me with?"

"Yes," she answered without remorse, but she didn't take obvious joy in it, either. "I'm afraid it was necessary. What little has been seen of your powers is quite impressive. This was much cleaner than many alternatives, and overall much kinder to you."

"Really." The bite came up instinctively as his disgust for the woman grew. "How very altruistic of you."

The corner of the left side of her lips twitched, but she did not reply. Instead she placed her elbows on her knees and leaned forward, clasping her hands together. "We don't want to hurt you."

He clenched his jaw at that. "Is that why you've put this device on me and cuffed me to a chair?"

Her lips twitched again. "We don't want you to hurt us either, doctor. Like I said: we need to talk."

Stephen was beginning to grow tired of the circles this conversation was taking (or, perhaps more accurately, of the weight upon his frail hands) and so answered with what she wanted. "What do you want to talk about?"

She offered him a polite smile, like one would give the local deli owner in passing. "We are looking for something that has proven to be quite elusive. We understand that you know where to find this item. All we need to know is the item's location."

He stared long at her expressionlessly. Whatever 'item' they were after that he supposedly knew about very likely should not be in their hands. Even if it was harmless, he had no plan to give it up otherwise, not after this.

And if he didn't know what they were talking about? All the better; he couldn't let anything slip that way.

The woman allowed him a moment to speak, but when he did not, she continued, "Doctor Strange, where is the Wand of Watoomb?"

His brow furrowed automatically in reply; _the Wand of Watoomb? _That was unexpected; it wasn't exactly something widely known for several reasons. For one thing, only someone who knew the Mystic Arts and knew them very well could utilize it. For another, it wasn't until they used the Stones to reverse time to a few days just before the Decimation (and beat Thanos for good) that the cosmos shifted and unleashed a new, lethal power within what was once just a fairly ordinary relic.

It was moved from the Hong Kong Sanctum to somewhere much more secure after that. Only he and a handful of other masters knew of the location. Honestly, they were probably the only ones that had the ability to access it even if every fledgling sorcerer knew about it; but not many more in Kamar-Taj realized what type of power the weapon now held.

_How on earth did these people know about it?_

"What do you want with it?" he asked instead.

She smiled politely. "We are here for you to answer the questions, doctor; tell us where we may find the Wand."

If they would not permit him questions, then he would retain his silence. He said nothing in reply.

Her eyes darted upward, just behind his shoulder, and he detected movement just before he was punched by the man on his right, causing his head to snap violently to the left as he grunted in pain. They waited for him to catch his breath and straighten once more.

"Doctor. Where is the Wand of Watoomb?"

His silence earned him another blow, this time in his upper chest. Another involuntary grunt of pain followed, but Stephen clenched his jaw shut as he met the woman's eyes.

"The Wand."

Again he said nothing, and another blow across his face broke skin this time. He must have missed another silent gesture, because they did not wait for him to recover; the blows came from both sides now, a couple aimed at his face but the majority at his chest and abdomen. The beating was a haze of motion as the constant hits made it increasingly difficult to breathe. His sight blurred further and darkness encroached upon the edges of his vision.

It took a couple of minutes for Stephen to realize that the blows had stopped. He sat slumped forward, gasping for breath as control over his basic bodily functions slowly came back online. As he carefully straightened himself, well aware of every ache that now encompassed his person, the woman spoke again.

"Do you not think this has gone far enough, Doctor Strange?" He lifted his gaze to meet her expressionless look. He swallowed, but again said nothing. She maintained eye contact before turning to the folder on the desk and opening it once more. She flipped a couple pages. "Eleven steel pins, it says here. That must have been a terrible car crash."

He froze, and his other pains flew to the back of his mind as all thought went to his hands. The strain the cuffs had put against them while he was being pummeled complained something fierce. He licked his lips— split now, he found— as he fully straightened and carefully readjusted the cuffs to rest higher on his wrists. All this time he maintained his steady look at the woman.

She looked away from the folder to meet his gaze again. Her lips down-turned as the silence sat. "Reconsider your position carefully, doctor. This need not go on." With that, she nodded her head at the two men at his sides and they left the room, leaving him to a painful recovery bound to the chair under the impinging silence of a softly buzzing bulb.

* * *

**Potential sensitive subjects include:** Captivity and its associated deprivations, gun barrel to the back of the head, beating during interrogation, threats of greater violence.

The first point will be a major element in the rest of the story and I recommend not reading further if this is a sensitive topic for you; the other two elements can be edited out/drastically simplified for those interested in seeing where the plot goes but have difficulty with those specific details. If you fall in that category, send me a PM here or on tumblr (same username as here) and I can send over an edited version of the chapter either removing or simplifying the element in question.

I love reviews. I feed on them like plants feed on carbon dioxide. Nom nom nom.


	4. A Garden of Black and Red Agonies

Chapter 4: A Garden of Black and Red Agonies

Like the last chapter, sometimes my writing style leads to descriptions that may bother some individuals. If you have any sensitivities to certain acts of violence, please read the end-chapter notes for the specific warnings before reading onward.

* * *

"_I am accused. I dream of massacres.  
__I am a garden of black and red agonies. I drink them,  
__Hating myself, hating and fearing. And now the world conceives  
__Its end and runs toward it, arms held out in love."  
_— Sylvia Plath

It wasn't the worst experience of his life, but it was definitely in the top five.

His brow furrowed in thought. Alright, top ten.

How fucked up must a person's life be if getting abducted and tortured for information did not even make your top five worst moments? To be fair, his top five were pretty impressive.

His time with Ebony Maw still ranked greater than this, for one thing. This might hurt more and lasted longer in comparison, but no one in this cell of villains had quite the sense of presence the alien had.

(He'd figure out who his captors were later— sadly they weren't the sort of villains to monologue their diabolical plans, which always made things so much easier.)

Granted, if they went through with the not-entirely-subtle threat they made to his hands, that would probably push them past the Maw.

Still. Not top five. The Ancient One's death took the fifth spot, partially due to the fact that they were only in the Mirror Dimension because he sent them there. Oh, guilt, that was an unhappy development after being suppressed for most of his adult years.

(Sometimes he would hear her voice mocking him for making her death about his guilt, and sometimes it would remind him that she specifically never saw past that moment. She knew of it and changed nothing. Usually that inner debate ended with him forcing the entire thing to the back of his head to try and forget about it. He never forgot.

Sometimes a voice sounding like Christine— or, worse, his mother— nagged at him about healthy coping mechanisms, and when that reared its ugly head, he tended to throw himself into a meditative trance until he found a mystical problem he could solve by beating it up with enough magic that it finally slunk back to where it was supposed to go).

He jerked himself back to awareness. Too much wandering. Where was he?

Oh, yes. Top five most miserable moments.

While it had taken some time deciding between Everything With Dormammu and Everything With Thanos, Dormammu ended up edging over Thanos for the third position. For one thing, Thanos did not actually hurt that much. Viewing alternate futures with the Time Stone was not quite the same as creating a time loop. There was more fast-forwarding for expediency, like skimming through a _Choose Your Own Adventure_ book with over 14 million permutations.

Not so with the time loops. There was no skimming in the time loop.

Sometimes the guilt of condemning trillions of sentient beings to death tried to push The Thanos Situation back past Dormammu, but that there was _really no other way_ that was not worse usually eased that.

Usually.

The fact the majority of the victims did not remember it also helped. If they did, that collective suffering would have shot it to the number one Worst Moment easily.

But since it didn't happen that way, he was permitted to rank the top two worst moments of his life to more personal incidents.

Donna and the Accident Aftermath jostled each other for number one depending on his level of self-pity at the particular moment of ranking. Donna was obvious; a younger sibling taken so suddenly in one's youth was bound to leave an impression.

The Accident used to be in the spot beside Donna, but it was sometime after taking up the position of Master of the New York Sanctum, once he had accepted his new lot in life, that he realized the following months were so much worse than the Accident itself. Having to rely on a caretaker for every basic need for weeks ate at his sense of pride; this, combined with the dwindling hope of recovery after every experimental procedure ate at his sense of worth. Losing the ability to perform surgery was miserable; losing the ability to find meaning in life was agony.

How far the mighty fall.

He snorted softly to himself, causing a just-congealed clot to crack and blood to start dripping again from his nose. He did not think it was broken, but that did not lessen the pain.

How far the mighty fall, indeed! What a thought. And how he had fallen again: Doctor Stephen Strange, newly crowned Sorcerer Supreme, taken down by a damn taser and magic suppression collar. It would be funny if it didn't hurt so much.

Where the hell was Wong? Surely he'd realized Stephen should have been back with food ages ago. And who knew how long whatever they shot him up with put him down for? Regardless, he was well overdue a stoic and partially belittling rescuer.

Something was not right. Wong was many things; stupid was not one of them. While Stephen may have been a bit more careless in his early days of sorcery, after the War he always told someone or left a note if he was going somewhere unexpected or otherwise had a change of plans.

Wong would have realized that, ergo, Wong should be here with another half-dozen sorcerers who would take personal offense at being disrupted from their daily mechanisms because one of their own needed aid. And he knew at least a couple of them would be _very_ offended if they saw him in his current state.

His mind was wandering again. Wong. Why was Wong not here? It was unlikely he left the Sanctum to be accosted himself (and just how _would_ they lure him? Free Beyoncé concert tickets?)

Stephen had to admit to himself that that was not a good joke.

_Wandering. Concentrate. Wong is not here. It is unlikely Wong was taken. Conclusion: … something is wrong. Another emergency, perhaps…_

As he found his mind exploring what constituted as 'another emergency' (and in his line of work, the possibilities were quite literally endless), he forced himself to turn his attention instead to another conclusion: he could not rely on the usual aid. He needed to try and get out of this himself.

Easier said than done. Still, he was not completely defenseless without magic. And it seemed his captors were due that reminder. He certainly had to try before this whole situation got worse.

With that in mind, he carefully readjusted the cuffs against his aching wrists once more. He set his gaze to the little red recording light on the camera in the corner and settled in to wait for their return.

* * *

Stephen had no method to track time in the windowless room, but eventually his two guards came back without the woman. One set a heavy hand on his shoulder while the other worked on the manacles.

Oh good. He was going to get his escape attempt sooner rather than later.

The cuffs were removed and he was hauled roughly to his feet, given very little time to find his balance as they led him out of the room and down the corridor.

He scanned his surroundings; it was difficult to see every single camera within the hall and there were likely some he could not see, but about thirty feet ahead was a darker spot in the hallway in between two distant light fixtures that happened to be just beyond the back of a fixed camera.

That spot was as good as any.

He estimated the steps until they made it to that point and counted down from there. Fifteen— fourteen— thirteen—

Stephen tensed at two.

As they entered the dark spot in the hallway, he put all his weight into a shove at the smaller of his guards, causing him to partially lose his grip in order to remain upright. He then pulled his arm free and swung into the next guard, aiming his free elbow straight into the side of his neck with the momentum. He got a partial hit, but it was enough to get the man to loosen his grasp on his arm, allowing Stephen to pull it free.

The first guard came at him from behind and wrapped an arm around his neck. Stephen gasped for air, but aimed his elbow straight into his abdomen, causing him to let go. Then the second guard was going at him again, throwing a punch towards his face. Stephen managed to dodge the blow and retaliated by kicking at the man's knee as he reached forward.

Outnumbered two to one, Stephen may have had a chance to defeat them if he was perfectly healthy, even without his magic. But unfortunately for him, he was already hurting from the earlier beating and there was an unsettled balance within his body from the missing magic. Alongside all that, he had an easily exploitable weakness that was all too easy to determine.

So he could not say that he was surprised that his hands were his downfall. One moment he managed to slam his elbow into the gut of one of the men once more; the next moment, the other one had gotten a hold of that arm, grabbed his hand, and twisted his fingers as he squeezed.

The pain brought him to his knees. His vision darkened and he nearly passed out, but he was not blessed with oblivion; rather they took the opportunity to make him pay for his act of defiance. The first hit got him just under the left eye. The next two were kicks directed at his ribcage. A last fist slammed against his right temple, again causing his vision to darken upon the edges of his sight.

As Stephen heaved for breath, his two escorts (also heavily breathing and very much sore) yanked him up again to his feet and twisted his arms into unnatural positions on each side, forcing both shoulders back and a painful strain in the rhomboid muscles upon his shoulder blades. They frog-marched him onward down the hall.

Within a minute, they stopped at another door that looked identical to all the others they had passed and opened it. He noted the foreboding scenery with a quick glance: stained concrete, drain, table bearing a box, stool. However, it was the sight of the chain hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room that caused him to stop in his tracks. A shove made the doctor stumble forward, though he thankfully caught himself before falling to the floor.

The two men grabbed his arms again and placed him beside the hanging chain. Stephen gritted his teeth and forced himself to remain silent; he could not appeal to their humanity, not when they were so bereft of it. A manacle was again attached to his wrist; the other end was pulled through the ring connected to the end of the chain before being attached to his other wrist. He took a slow breath even as his heart began to race in terror.

The slow breathing did nothing to calm his increased heart rate as one of the men went to the wall where a small control panel was placed. He flipped open the lid and flicked a switch.

A motor thrummed above him as the chain rose, forcing his arms upward. It only stopped when his arms were fully elongated to the point that any further would cause him the necessity of standing on the balls of his feet. It pulled at every muscle in his upper back and arms and put an uncomfortable pressure on his hands, which he was sure would turn from discomfort to agony within a short period of time.

As far as stress positions go, it was very effective.

Stephen clenched his jaw and focused on his breathing as both men walked behind him and out of sight. He heard them shuffle about with whatever was in the box, but the sound did nothing for him in identifying anything.

His attention turned to the door as it opened and the woman walked in. She came to a stop about four feet in front of him and folded her arms. "While your attempt to escape was briefly amusing, I did expect more rational behavior on your part, Doctor Strange. This can all end when you cooperate with us."

At her statement, he could not help the short, bitter laugh that bubbled up. "You expect me to believe that you will let me live?"

She canted her head slightly. "We have no reason to kill you. Unlike her, you know nothing about us. Once we have the Wand, we will leave you exactly where we picked you up."

Stephen barely registered the remainder of her words after she said 'her'. It did not take a genius to put two and two together and understand she meant Neelu. His eyes narrowed and his lips twisted upward in fury. "You killed her."

The woman realized her mistake in revealing information to him; he could see it in her brief look of surprise, followed by her tensing. She quickly regained her confident poise and answered flippantly, "Did you not know? She heard rumour of our searching for the artifact in Hong Kong three weeks ago." After speaking, she looked behind him and nodded once.

A sharp pain exploded across his shoulders. He gasped and almost stumbled, but then quickly straightened himself to take the pressure off his wrists and clenched his jaw shut. His nostrils flared in a combination of pain and anger.

For her part, she still seemed miffed by her earlier slip, for she continued to taunt him with Neelu's story. The woman moved towards Stephen's left as she began to slowly circle him. "We did not know then; we only learned of her last week. We were only planning on monitoring her, but then this nosy, unassuming woman in China somehow ends up outside of the building of one of our contacts in New York— two hours after she was last seen in Hong Kong. _That_ was well worth investigating." A nod, and another burst of pain went along the length of his back. He grunted, but continued to keep his jaw clenched shut, making as little sound as possible. He kept his gaze straight forward as she left his line of sight.

He was whipped thrice more in quick succession, causing him the need to weakly grasp at the chain above him in order to remain fully upright and not place more weight on his wrists. As he inhaled sharply through his nose for breath and gritted his teeth so tightly together that they hurt, she continued on. "She was not willing to speak at first, but she did eventually talk— just like you will." Her voice was now at his back right. "And what marvels she revealed! Not scientifically-enhanced persons, but _sorcery_. Masters of the Mystic Arts." He was struck two more times, this time against his thighs and the back of his knees, and his body jerked violently. His wrists grew wet with more than just sweat.

She came back to his front again and met his furious glare. "An order of magic users led by a former neurosurgeon that disappeared from the public eye and most records years ago. You have had a most unusual career path, Doctor Strange."

Stephen grunted again in pain when the thrashes started anew. This time there were four— three against the back of his legs, and once against his shoulder blades. His crippled hands, violently shaking, now held on with what little strength they had to the chain above him, but he did not know how long he could maintain his grasp.

Somewhere in that last round he had closed his eyes; when he opened them again, the woman was but a foot away from him now, looking up at him with bright hazel eyes that were cool and calculated. "You can stop this unnecessary pain, doctor. Just say the word and we can sit down and have a civilized conversation."

Neelu's deceased form flashed through his mind. He met the woman's gaze and answered softly, teeth bared, "Go to hell."

Her lips down-turned and she took a few steps back. "Still recalcitrant. Very well." She moved to the control box on the wall and flipped the lid open; she turned her look towards him as she flicked a switch. The thrum of the motor began above him again and his arms were forced upward until he was standing on the balls of his feet; only then did she flick the switch off.

Alarm bells erupted throughout his mind. While he could support himself now, he did not know how long he could maintain it, and he knew enough about the human body to know that suspension from the wrists alone became deadly quickly. "If you want me alive, this is a bad way to go about it," he gasped.

For the first time he caught emotion in her expression; at his words, her eyes glinted in dark amusement. "We are not amateurs, doctor. You will not die unless we mean for you to die." She nodded once more and turned to the door.

By the time she had left the room, another four strokes resonated loudly against Stephen's body, and they long continued after her departure.

* * *

**Potential sensitive subjects include:** Beating after an escape attempt, stress positions tailored to agonize his wrists and hands, whipping

These elements can be simplified to very basic, outlined points without details for those interested in seeing where the plot goes but have difficulty with reading about them in detail. If you fall in that category, send me a PM here or on tumblr (same username as here) and I can send over an edited version of the chapter by simplifying the element in question.

Fun fact: The first sentence of the chapter was the first part I wrote for this story, and it ended up being the title of the document until I figured out the red theme.


	5. The Colour of Life Violated

Just like the last two chapters, my writing can contain visceral imagery that may bother some individuals. If you have any sensitivities to certain acts of violence, please read the end-chapter notes for the specific warnings before reading onward.

There is an illustration for this chapter butttt you know, this website doesn't allow embedding things in the fics. It's up on my tumblr and AO3 accounts of the same name, though.

* * *

"_Red has been praised for its nobility as the colour of life. But the true colour of life is not red. Red is the colour of violence, or of life broken open, edited, and published. Or if red is indeed the colour of life, it is so only on condition that it is not seen. Once fully visible, red is the colour of life violated, and in the act of betrayal and of waste."_

— _Alice Meynell_

Waking up was unpleasant.

Unpleasant was a conservative word for his whole state of being. In truth, his entire body was on fire.

His last memory of the waking world was another strike against his legs causing them to fully give out; the resulting pain that came from his body's weight pulling the manacles taut against his hands was finally too much for him and he passed out. _Vasovagal syncope_ came from the small part of his mind that had chosen to disconnect itself from his wretched reality.

Stephen opened his eyes to find himself back in his cell. He was lying on the filthy mattress on his side, more or less in the recovery position. _They do know how to keep their captives alive_, he thought grimly. While heavy nausea was unusual in fainting cases, it was not unheard of; it would hardly do for them to lose a prisoner from choking on his own vomit.

He took stock of his body as much as he could without actually moving. Stephen had no interest in alerting his abductors that he was awake once again; as he was turned away from the camera, he could pretend he was still unconscious. He could not see his back or the back of his legs, but every muscle throbbed even as he lay still. He imagined that moving would be incredibly painful for the next few days. If the bruises had not already begun forming there, they certainly would soon.

It took a moment for him to realize that he could not fully open his left eye. He wasn't sure if it was a hit in the first interrogation or the skirmish in the hall that caused it. Maybe both. Did it actually matter? Thankfully he could still see through it, so he would take what he could get.

His wrists and hands were… they weren't great. Stephen swallowed at the sight of his mangled wrists painted red and at the puffy, swollen digits beyond both of them. Against his better judgement he tried to move his fingers; he immediately regretted it. He quickly bit down on his lip to hold back a cry, though he could do nothing against the involuntary tears of pain that gathered at the corners of his eyes.

But damn it all if he would let them know how much it hurt. He would not give them a show to watch while he laid there, writhing in agony.

When the pain died down to something he could manage without a sound, he took a slow, deep breath. His ribs hurt, but he did not think they were broken. He could not breathe through his nose without it hurting, so he took short, shallow breaths through his mouth. Oxygen. Oxygen was good. He'd focus on trying to get in deeper breaths later. When it hurt less.

After a few minutes of only breathing and thinking of nothing else, Stephen finally allowed his mind to wander again. This had now become worse than the Ebony Maw incident. Maybe he would let go of his guilt and allow this to become his fifth worst experience. If it continued on for much longer, he may just have to group Dormammu, Thanos, and Whatever The Fuck This Was to tie for third place.

He took another breath, as deep as his sore rib cage would allow. His thoughts pivoted to Neelu.

_Why would you do that?_ She could defend herself as well as anyone trained in Kamar-Taj (basic self defense was a necessary part of being within the order, if the individual was physically capable of it), but she was one who had focused on translations and research. She only fought when everyone who could fight was needed; otherwise her purview had not been within the realm of finding threats.

_What did you get yourself into, Neelu? Why did you not come to Minoru? To me?_ Did she not consider it worth their time? Was she trying to find more evidence that there was something more sinister going on beyond chatter and rumours? Did she not want to bother someone higher within the order until she was certain it was a threat?

He exhaled softly and let his eyes fall shut. Whatever her reasoning was did not much matter now; she was dead. That they had been unable to protect her from a threat they had not known even existed twisted at his heart, building into a combination of grief, guilt, and anger.

_How had we not known you had suffered?_ Unfortunately, his medical background answered the rhetorical question quickly; he was well aware that there were many tortures that left little to no marks upon the body, and they— he— had not thought to consider a full autopsy to investigate further despite the suspicious nature of her death. He was a fool.

Stephen clenched his jaw; she had died when she should not have. The least he could do was keep his silence so that her sacrifice was not wasted.

* * *

He had no idea how long it was before he drifted off again, nor how much time had passed until he was jerked awake by his cell door slamming open. He was more dragged than walked to the interrogation room with the metal chair and secured to it once more. The weight of the manacles against his raw wrists and swollen hands immediately hurt and he clenched his jaw closed to keep from making more than a grunt.

Stephen estimated that they had been working on him for perhaps ten, fifteen minutes now. It was the same as before: punches primarily to his chest and abdomen with the occasional punch to the face. At one point he caught the woman's eyes wandering to the container on the table.

Another blow landed across his face, causing his head to whip to the side.

"The Wand, doctor." She was the only one who spoke during these interrogations.

Stephen spat out a glob of saliva mixed heavily with blood to the side and swallowed, but said nothing. Instead he lifted his head for a moment to meet her eyes, allowing his resolve to remain silent shine through.

The woman in return met his gaze, then looked more pointedly to the container. The gesture was obvious; it surely would not be long now before they moved to other measures.

He let his head fall once more, too weary to bother with supporting it. Rather he concentrated on his next move for when the more extreme measures came into play. He had already determined that he would not break his silence (if at all possible) until they went for his hands. If— who was he kidding, _when_— when it came to that point, he had a set of false information that he started playing in his head the moment they woke him up and vowed to continue the mental recitation until it felt real.

Hopefully that would buy him enough time to— to do what? Try to escape? No, that ship had sailed. He was in no condition to escape on his own; he should have attempted to remove the damn collar the moment he first awoke in the cell instead of assuming rescue was coming quickly. Now his hands were more than useless and not up for the task.

Another punch drew him out of his head. He grunted, but as he promised himself, he did not speak.

The interrogation dragged on (for him, at least) with little change in procedure. The two muscle worked him over for a couple minutes, the woman would ask the same question, and when he said nothing, the process would repeat itself. It was very painful, but he had suffered through worse pains in his life for much lesser reasons.

Eventually something changed, though he could not say how long it took for it to happen. One of his tormentors grabbed his hair and forced his head up so that he met the woman's eyes. Her face remained expressionless as she said, "Perhaps it's time to move on to another method of persuasion, doctor." Stephen did his best to keep his face expressionless, but whatever she saw seemed to please her, if the slight smile was anything to go by.

She was a real asshole.

The woman straightened and turned to the container on the table. The hand in his hair kept his face up as she perused through the items for a moment. Eventually she picked up a black, rectangular device about the size of his hand, though he could not make out what it was in the poor lighting.

That is, until she turned it on. A jarring popping sound split through the room as a powerful, blue electric current sprang between the two metal prongs at the end of the device.

It had been some years since Stephen had last seen a stun gun, but he would never forget the sound. His whole body involuntarily tensed and he clenched his teeth together.

She let the noise of stun gun fill the room for a solid ten seconds before lifting her finger off the button. She handed the weapon to one of the men behind him, then turned her gaze back to Stephen. "The Wand of Watoomb, Doctor Strange. Where is it?"

He remained silent.

A glance was all the warning he got before the device was set against his upper arm and turned on. His bicep proceeded from there to burn and he quickly lost focus on his surroundings.

When Stephen realized the pain in his arm wasn't utterly excruciating anymore, he found his head hanging and that he had lost track of time. He was panting, breathing as deeply as he could (and that hurt, too). He lifted his eyes to look up at the woman as his brain caught up to the situation.

"The Wand," she said, and his brow furrowed. Right. The Wand. That wasn't happening. He straightened himself and just looked at her.

The horrible electric sound started up again and this time he could watch as the prongs were set against his right thigh. And this time he could not help but shout as the muscles within his thigh contracted in rapid and utterly agonizing movement.

He was not sure when he stopped screaming, and it took a short moment for him to remember who he was and why he was in such terrible pain. He was completely slumped forward in the chair, the pull of the cuffs against his wrists but one of the many pains coursing through his person. He gasped for breath.

One of the men took hold of a chunk of hair and dragged him back up into an upright position. His heavily-lidded eyes were forced to meet the woman's blank expression.

"This can end right now, doctor," she said softly. "Just tell us where the Wand of Watoomb can be found and you can go home."

His brow furrowed. Why did she want it? It was useless, well, not entirely, but nothing special… oh no, it used to be like that. Right, right. But they couldn't use it. And there was… something… he couldn't remember but it was something important.

Stephen didn't know what he did (or maybe said, it was hard to keep track of currently) but her expression hardened and he was pulled upright so that he leaned completely back against the chair.

That awful, rapid fire sound broke through the room before the prongs were set against his abdomen.

His scream of agony came from deep within him and tore its way up his throat. He couldn't say how long the stun gun was set against him or how long he screamed, but by the time he recovered some sense of self the scream had been replaced by ragged sobs, ones he could not stop as he just tried to breathe.

"We will give you some time to consider your options." Stephen lifted his eyes; the woman and the two men were in front of him now. He could not reply to her at that moment even if he wanted to, and he let his gaze fall back to the floor. She added, "Think carefully on your response for when we return, doctor," and three pairs of footsteps walked to the door. He heard it creak open, then slam shut.

Other than his haggard, broken breathing, it was completely silent. Even the damn bulb had stopped buzzing.

Stephen's mind slowly came back online as the last of the painful muscle contractions ended. He swallowed heavily and worked to gather what little remaining strength he had left before the interrogation began anew.

* * *

He was not entirely sure as to when he last saw his captors, but when he heard the door being unlocked, he did not bother looking up.

There was little he could do to help himself, anyway.

"Doctor!"

Oh… that was unexpected. He lifted his swollen face to find himself staring at Captain America.

"Found him," Steve Rogers said into an earpiece. "Basement second floor, down the right from the east stairwell. We need medical aid…" He paused as he stepped forward and knelt beside him, eyeing the thick collar on Stephen's neck. "And Tony, I think we'll need your expertise. It looks like the same collar we found last month." He turned his eyes from the collar to look at Stephen properly. "Are you with me, Doctor Strange?" he asked softly.

He forced his hoarse throat to work. "Sort of wish I wasn't; no offense."

Steve laughed quietly. "None taken. Give me a moment to find the right key and I will have you out of those cuffs. I'm afraid we'll have to wait for Tony for the collar." He spared it a frown before flipping through the keys. Stephen appreciated it; while he was certain the captain had the ability to break through the cuffs, he was not sure his damaged hands could take the pressure from the snap. Clearly Steve was aware of this.

As he tried the keys, Stephen muttered, "I thought you weren't doing much… field work these days."

"Only on occasion now, yes. When I heard you were missing, I found it to be a very good occasion." He heard Steve fiddle with the key ring. "Sorry, there are a lot of keys."

He would shrug, but it would just hurt. Instead he replayed the Captain's words in his head. "It sounded like you've… seen this collar before."

"We raided a HYDRA base a couple weeks ago where we found a prototype as well as hints of a plan that it was being made to use on an enhanced being, though it mentioned the Avengers later on and seemed to connect this person to the group. We had no idea that they meant you." The apology was clear in his tone.

Stephen's lip twitched. "Clearly flawed research… I'm not an Avenger."

"By your choice alone, Doctor." The next key fit into the lock and the cuffs snapped open.

Stephen brought his arms forward slowly, wary of the chance of the painful pins and needles sensation, especially within his damaged hands. "I think… they didn't know what to call us," he murmured, gritting his teeth as he finally moved his hands to rest on his thighs. His wrists were torn and covered in blood, and his digits resembled discolored sausage links more than anything. He couldn't bear to look at them, so he looked just over Rogers' shoulder instead. "They somehow learned of a rather powerful relic within our possession." He paused for a breath. "I do not know what they wanted it for." Another breath. "For the most part, she was close-lipped."

"She?"

"Main interrogator. About 5'4. Blonde. Hazel." He closed his eyes. "Well-educated. Professional. Not a very nice person."

"We'll look out for her." He heard Steve change positions to kneel beside him, and felt the man's light touch on his arm. "The others are just finishing rounding everyone up in the building; she will be found. Medical is almost here; just wait a couple minutes longer, doctor."

"'s fine," he mumbled. "Nothing permanent, I think." God, he was exhausted. And still in a decent amount of pain, but largely exhausted.

Within a minute, a quick swish of fabric broke through the stillness, and he opened his eyes just in time to see the cloak rush into the room. Stephen offered it a weary smile as it sped at him, then stopped in front of his chair, twitching as if hesitant to touch him. "Hey… good to see you. Don't worry... you won't hurt me."

The cloak, however, continued to twitch and fret about his person, twisting this way and that and slowly reaching out with an end before again twisting in some sort of strange agitation. Concern helped beat back some of his exhaustion and his brows furrowed. "Hey, what's wrong? You've seen me in worse conditions before. You've seen me _dead_ hundreds of times." He ignored the look Steve Rogers sent his way and reached out with a swollen, heavily trembling hand. The cloak hesitated, then touched his hand and wrapped an end very gently around it, but still it twitched mid-air as if it wanted to continue its agitated circles around him. "You're usually better at this."

"It's not your wounds that keeps the cloak agitated; it is your state of magic." Stephen turned his head to see Wong enter with Bruce Banner, the latter of which carried a large med bag. The doctor quickly hurried over and took out one of Stark's fancy handheld diagnostics machines, which immediately scanned him over and started inputting information on the screen that he couldn't see. Annoying.

Wong stepped closer, causing him to look his way again. "Or rather," he continued, "the cloak is agitated over your lack of magic. You have been completely cut off from a core part of yourself by that _device_." The usually stoic man sneered as he eyed the collar around his neck. "The cloak senses the difference. I'm not certain it entirely understands the reason your being has been altered, but it seems to know you are changed."

"Only temporarily," Stephen reassured the cloak, then glanced at the captain once more. "Right?" An unwelcome flare of panic began to bubble at the bottom of his stomach.

Steve nodded. "From what Tony said about the prototype, it was not something permanent. Tony—"

"—is right here." They turned to the door to find Tony Stark, now bereft of the Iron Man armor, striding through with his usual confident gait. He paused at the sight of Stephen, and it took him a moment longer than usual to find his words. "Wow, Doc, you really look like shit."

Stephen was incredibly grateful for the distraction that Tony's blunt words provided, and responded accordingly by making a face at the mechanic. "About matches how I feel, then. Can you get this damned thing off me?" He gestured loosely towards his neck.

"Of course I can." He rounded the back of the chair and Stephen felt him carefully tilt the collar to get a closer look. "You're right, Cap; this is all but a duplicate of the one we found. Minor modifications, but looks like the same locking mechanism. Just give me one moment…"

He waited with bated breath as Tony tinkered with the lock. About twenty seconds later, a small click echoed through the silent room and Stephen relaxed his shoulders as Tony said, "Got it," and carefully removed the awful device.

The effect was immediate. A sudden surge of energy he had taken for granted before this entire experience engulfed his whole being, causing every extremity to tingle with sensation.

The cloak noticed, too. It shoved itself between him and the back of the chair, then draped itself sideways across both shoulders and arms like the world's most insistent blanket. He laughed softly and stroked its soft lining with a cracked smile.

Suddenly, a water canteen was in his face. "Drink a little; you're dehydrated," Bruce said, seemingly ready to hold the canteen to his mouth.

Stephen may have been beaten, but he still had some modicum of his pride. "I can do it," he said. Before anyone could so much as look at the poor excuse for fingers that sat on each hand, he made a quick gesture that, while it ached, still caused the canteen to pour water into the little canteen cup and _he would never take magic for granted again_.

When he had his fill, he let Bruce take hold of the canteen once more and listened as he said, "As I mentioned, you are dehydrated; you're also running a low grade fever, which isn't surprising. One of your ribs is cracked and another two are severely bruised. You have an alarming amount of abrasions across your body."

"Well aware of that," Stephen retorted in a mumble. Their relatively no-nonsense, professional demeanor helped him relax in a manner that frantic worrying would never be able to achieve. Their facades screamed 'we know what we're doing; this is nothing we haven't seen before. You can relax now. You're safe.'

He was _safe_.

Bruce offered him a slight smile. "I imagine so. The good news is that none of your injuries are permanent in nature."

"Good," he muttered. "Just let me sleep for the next week, then."

"You sleep as long as you need, Doc," Tony said from behind him. "You'll have one of the world's top med teams using the best tech in the world to help you recover."

"Assuming that is alright with your order," Bruce added to Wong; ever the diplomat.

Wong nodded. "More than fine, as long as you understand he will be receiving some visitors from our end."

"We'll let the med team know."

Somewhere during the conversation Stephen had closed his eyes; when they started talking about a stretcher and Wong's answer about that being unnecessary, he opened them once more. "I don't need a stretcher. I can walk."

"Up two flights of stairs and out of the building?" Bruce asked.

"We could portal him to the compound, couldn't we?" Tony asked, looking at Wong. "A few of us could go with him while the others finish up here and take the quinjet back."

Wong nodded. "That was my plan."

"Good," Steve said. "We'll continue clean up here and work with the authorities. Fair warning, doctor: S.H.I.E.L.D. may be debriefing you in the next day or two depending on what we find."

"Oh joy."

As Wong began to create a portal to the medical wing of the Avengers Compound, Steve turned his attention to Tony. "Are you staying here or going with them?"

"Going," Tony answered. "I'm still mostly retired. Strange should consider himself lucky that Pep likes him. I _definitely_ wouldn't be here otherwise."

That made Stephen smile. _Douchebag._ "I'll remember that… next time you call asking if I can portal in 'real Mexican food' to your cabin."

"That hasn't happened more than… four, five times. Six at most."

"C'mon, you two can continue this conversation at the compound," Bruce interjected.

_Oh, right._ Wong was a few feet away and more than ready with the portal, and it looked like someone from the compound-side was approaching with a wheelchair.

Oh no. That wasn't happening. Without further word, Stephen began to push himself up off the chair (using his forearms rather than his hands) and with what little remaining strength he had, forced himself into a standing position. He tried to take a step forward.

His body was having none of it; his leg buckled and he collapsed. From his peripheral vision he saw Tony, Steve, and Bruce all reach out for him as one.

The cloak caught him long before any of them offered a supportive hand, but it was a nice sentiment.

He tried to say, "I'm fine," but it came out more like, 'M-fnn' and wasn't that just embarrassing.

"You will be," Steve answered reassuringly.

The cloak allowed him the dignity of pretending to be walking while in reality it was carrying most of his weight. Bruce and Tony hovered at either side of them as they walked through the portal straight into the med bay.

Somewhere between the portal and his final destination he lost track of, well, everything. One moment he was still (mostly pretending) to walk under his own power, and the next he found himself sitting on a bed as a couple nurses removed his filthy shirt. Bruce was relaying information to the doctor while it seemed Wong and Tony had left to give him a modicum of privacy. Nice of them.

Another bit of time passed and somehow he was in a hospital gown and being gently maneuvered to lie down. Bruce was gone and the doctor was saying _things_, things he knew that he knew like _pneumothorax_ and _intravenous_, but his knowing was not connecting to the right part of his brain that actually informed him what all those sounds put together meant.

And suddenly the constant pain that had consumed him for the last day began to fade, and it felt really fantastic. It was the last thing Stephen needed before he let sleep completely consume him.

* * *

**Potential sensitive subjects include:** Descriptions of damaged hands, more beatings during an interrogation, electrocution via stun-gun.

These elements can be either removed (#1 and #3) or simplified to very basic, outlined points (#2) without details for those interested in seeing where the plot goes but have difficulty with reading about them in detail. If you fall in that category, send me a PM on tumblr (same username as here) and I can send over an edited version of the chapter by simplifying the element in question.

I am still undecided if my Bruce is normal Bruce or Professor Hulk Bruce. As such, the decision is up to the reader.

The Haven of Aelaer take gratuities for not killing off Stephen in the form of reviews. Donations may be made by stringing together a few words in that comment box just below (appropriate examples of donations the Haven of Aelaer accepts are many and cannot all be listed here, but often include such words as 'enjoy' and 'yay' and 'more'). Gratuities are not necessary of course, but always appreciated. The Haven of Aelaer wishes you a pleasant day.


	6. The Red Flare

_Sorry I forgot that this wasn't posted here. I don't get a lot of feedback on this website so it gets easy to forget - whoops. _

* * *

_Life moves out of a red flare of dreams  
Into a common light of common hours,  
__Until old age brings the red flare again.  
_— _W. B. Yeats_

When Stephen woke up, Clint was in one of the bedside chairs playing on his phone. He must have made a noise, because the archer looked up and shot him a smile.

"Hey. Thanks for winning me twenty bucks." Stephen's brow furrowed in confusion, and Clint continued, "I made a bet with Tony and Sam that you'd wake up during my shift because you like me best. And here you are."

A lot of things about that statement confused him and he took a moment to process it all. 'Here' was easy; he remembered the rescue. The rest, though… "Shifts?" he mumbled.

"Oh, uh… well, it's a thing we really started to do after, you know, the War. We figured no one wants to wake alone the first time they wake up in the med bay, so we all take shifts. Make sure someone is there to say hi when they wake up. FRIDAY could tell us, of course, but even Tony agreed a person is a bit more, y'know, personable." That still did not make sense, but Stephen hadn't quite figured out the reason why it didn't make sense. He let that thought go and instead shifted himself into a more seated position and moved his gaze to inspect himself.

He was clean; even if his eyes were closed, he could both feel it and smell it. Usually the indignity of a bed bath got the best of him, but honestly, it felt so nice that he couldn't find it in himself to care. His hands were looking significantly less swollen; Stephen imagined that another day or so would have them back to their usual state. Both of his wrists were wrapped in soft gauze; just above the bandaging of his left wrist was an IV line, though he was pretty sure that the painkillers they gave him in the beginning had been weaned off significantly since he fell asleep, if they were present at all. He didn't quite trust his body to figure that out at the moment. At the other end of the bed lying sideways across his feet was the ever-faithful Cloak of Levitation; it lifted its collar and he smiled warmly at it before letting his eyes move to the rest of the room.

Stephen recognized the room as one of those within the medbay of the Avengers Compound. He had a vague memory of an agreement between the Avengers and Wong to be brought here, though beyond that it got very, very fuzzy. Morning sunlight streamed through a wide window to light up the high-tech equipment that dotted the spacious room. Beside his bed were a couple of chairs (one currently inhabited by the archer) and a small table that bore a few items, including a cup and a jug of water.

Clint must have seen something in his expression, because he immediately got up and filled the plastic cup halfway. "You got this?" he asked casually as he held out the cup.

Stephen nodded and took the cup with his free hand. It shook (of course), but he could hold onto it with enough of a grip to prevent the cup from falling. He drained it empty and gave it back to Clint before speaking. "How long was I asleep?"

"Not that long, actually," Clint answered. "About six, seven hours? You struck me as the sort to want answers before sleeping for twenty-four hours." He grinned. "And that's why I won the bet."

Stephen finally realized what did not make sense and his brow furrowed in confusion. "Why would you take shifts for me? I'm not an Avenger."

Clint snorted. "Isn't Tony still badgering you to join? Don't tell me he's given up."

No, Tony had not given up, despite him being 'mostly retired'. If there was one thing Tony Stark was not, it was a quitter. Unfortunately for Tony Stark, Stephen Strange was equally bullheaded.

Stephen ignored the question and instead gently prodded at his face. He felt a couple lines of stitches amongst the swelling. He couldn't see much out of his left eye still, but what he could see was clear, thankfully. "What's the damage?" he asked.

"Did you want the medical breakdown or a mirror?"

He shot him a look. "What do you think?"

Clint laughed as he reached over to the other end of the bed to a surface out of sight, then lifted and passed to him a thin screen. Stephen quickly read over the report: some stitches, entirely too much bruising for any one person to go through, cracked rib. A couple minor burn marks from the stun gun on his abdomen; he grimaced and moved on. No concussion; he wasn't sure before, but that was good news. No (additional) permanent damage to his hands. So he was battered and bruised, but ultimately not broken.

It definitely could have been much, much worse.

"Oh, hey; I brought you a gift." He looked up from the screen as Clint dug through a pack beside the chair. He drew out a truly ugly doll that pulsed with magic. "I figured he'd make a great cuddle buddy."

"Your thoughtfulness fills me with joy," Stephen replied in as dry a tone as he was capable of.

Clint grinned. "Yeah, Laura tells me the same thing."

"I hope this isn't the sort of present you give her on your anniversary."

"Nah, ugly dolls are strictly Valentine's Day." He put the monstrosity on the side table.

Stephen grimaced at it, then leaned back and got as comfortable as he could in his current state. It was time to gather some information. "How long was I gone?"

"By Wong's story, about eighteen hours."

_Speaking of which._ "Where is Wong?"

"Upstairs with the others. They were reviewing the data retrieved from the building we found you in."

"We?" Stephen raised the brow of his good eye at Clint. "That doesn't sound like retired."

"It was a special occasion. Laura likes you. She wants you to visit again once you're better, by the way."

"Noted. What have you learned so far? Who were those people?"

Clint leaned back. "I don't know a ton; I left just after Tony managed to hack past their security protocols and get into the main system. I can tell you that they're HYDRA, or, well, the new HYDRA. We've captured or killed most of the old guard over the years, but there's always some aspiring terrorist group willing to take the name."

Stephen hummed in acknowledgment, then frowned. "Do you know why they wanted the Wand?"

"The what?"

"The Wand of Watoomb. That's why they captured me— and another one of my order. Neelu." His heart panged in regret.

Clint nodded solemnly. "Wong mentioned something like that when I first got in touch with him." At the confused look, he clarified, "When you didn't call me back, I figured you were held up with something more important for the day and that the doll wouldn't like, unleash a hell demon or something. I called back the next morning and Wong picked up your phone. Said you had gone missing a few hours ago and couldn't be traced through 'the normal way', whatever that means. He told me about her." The look he gave him was one of understanding and condolence.

Stephen inclined his head and remained silent for a moment. Eventually he said, "Wong should be told about the Wand."

"FRIDAY?" Clint said towards the ceiling.

"I have relayed this information," the AI answered.

"Anyway," Clint turned back to him. "I asked Wong if there was anything we could do to help. He said, 'Most likely not,' but he did know where you were going before you were snatched. So I told Nat and Wanda, and news got back to the compound pretty quickly. Turns out when a wizard goes missing, everyone is pretty concerned."

Stephen huffed at the terminology. "The concern is appreciated. How did you find me?"

"While Nat, Wanda, and I jetted on over from Iowa, everyone in the Compound went to the city to retrace your steps. Tony heard about it, of course, and looked for evidence over security cameras on your most likely routes from his cabin. I think the only Avenger, retired or otherwise, currently in New England that wasn't looking for you was Peter, and that's mostly because Tony threatened to put malware on the devices of anyone who told Peter something like this during his finals week."

He was, admittedly, quite touched. He cleared his throat of any welling emotion and said instead, "Good. I wouldn't want Peter to miss his finals on my behalf."

"The kid's gonna be pissed." Clint chuckled. "Anyway, I think it was Sam who found the trashed pierogies and from there Tony was able to get a license plate when a van drove in and out of the alley. If you don't mind me asking, how did they get you?"

Stephen sighed. "They staged a medical emergency in the alley— collapsed man, panicking woman. While I was taking his pulse, she attacked me with a taser, then gave me something to knock me out for who knows how long."

Clint's brows rose. "A taser. Huh. I keep on forgetting that you're basically human like— some of the rest of us. The overpowered magic and all." Stephen snorted softly, then the archer continued, "We were able to get that information to Wong as Tony did— something, no idea what— to look for the van across security and traffic cameras. There was a lot of manual scanning by the team and some of your order when it turned out that even Tony's tech isn't perfect— though I'm pretty sure he'll fix that now." He offered a brief smile. "It took a while to find where it stopped, but once we found the van, we found you."

"And where did you find me?"

"Jersey, in the middle of nowhere. An old abandoned hospital that HYDRA had taken over in secret. That's part of the reason for our delay."

Stephen nodded, then settled back to recline a bit more once again. "HYDRA," he muttered. "How did HYDRA hear about the Wand?"

"No idea," Clint answered as he looked at his phone, "but if I timed it right from when FRIDAY informed the others about your wand— that's rather funny that you have a wand, by the way—" Stephen rolled his eyes, "but if I timed it right, someone should be in here with more information within the next forty-five seconds."

Twenty-two seconds later, Wong, Tony, and Sam entered the room.

"Why are you awake? You should be asleep at least until the evening," Tony said in greeting, mock-frowning at Stephen.

Clint smiled. "He's just annoyed he lost the bet."

"I'm a billionaire. Ten dollars isn't exactly a burden for me."

"Oh, I know. But I know you're really annoyed at losing."

Sam, in the meanwhile, had stopped at the doorway and was staring at Stephen with a blank face. When the doctor moved to meet his eyes, the man said, "The assholes who did this to you are all dead, right?"

Tony looked back at Sam with a frown. "You were rounding up the ones captured alive with Steve and the others, weren't you?"

"Yeah," Sam answered, "but this is the point where Strange tells me if he wouldn't mind if an unfortunate accident happened to those that are still around who had a personal hand in all this."

Tony hummed in thought and didn't outright disagree. If anything, he appeared to be currently _scheming _within the confines of his creative genius to launch a foolproof plan to do just that. Clint raised his brows as he looked between the two Avengers.

"A very unfortunate and unpredictable accident," Wong added expressionlessly in a manner that Stephen knew that, if he gave the word, Wong would kill on his behalf without any qualms.

That was alarming. He knew they were angry, but it was time to nip this thought process in the bud.

"No," he answered, voice firm and unrelenting. "They will answer for their crimes with S.H.I.E.L.D. We're not vigilantes."

Sam's tense stance deflated and he properly entered the room. "No, we're not, but it's times like this that I get where the vigilantes are coming from." Another hum from Tony, but otherwise he remained uncharacteristically quiet.

Clint frowned at them. "We're all upset with what happened, but this is unusually vengeful for you both." The unspoken question hung in the air between them.

It was, unsurprisingly, Wong who answered it. "We came across some video of the interrogation shortly before FRIDAY informed us that Stephen was awake."

Video— oh. The cameras. Right.

He honestly wasn't sure how he felt about several of the Avengers and his best friend watching him being tortured. A stranger reviewing it for evidence was bad enough, but his friends and colleagues seeing him in such a low, weakened state—

"Hey, Doc. Stephen. Stop it." Stephen, shaken out of his mind with that ambiguous statement, lifted his gaze to meet Tony's look. "You've got the 'my teammates have seen me at a low point and must think me weak' look."

His brow furrowed and he immediately began to deny it. "That's not exactly—"

"Yeah, no, don't bother saying otherwise. It's a very distinct look. And frankly put, it's rather embarrassing."

_Wait— what? _

"I mean," Tony continued, "I thought you were a doctor."

"I am," he said, because his mind was still trying to figure out what was happening and he couldn't think of a better answer.

"Then you should know that your ability to hold out like you did shows an enormous amount of strength."

Stephen swallowed and didn't answer.

"He's right," Sam added. "All of us here— we're prideful men. We don't want to be seen in compromising positions, ever. But you need to realize right now that, no matter how many Cthulhus you battle on a weekly basis—" Stephen snorted softly. "—that, even with your magic, you're just a man with normal human endurance. And that's okay. Hell, it's preferable; there's too many infinity-stone-powered, super-serumed, alien-blooded assholes running around."

Tony smirked and Clint added, "Amen."

His eyes strayed from Sam to Wong. He said nothing, but Wong didn't need to say anything; Stephen had become quite proficient in reading the nuances of Wong's silent, expressionless faces, and this one spoke of clear agreement with the words spoken by the others and of silent, steady support through thick and thin.

Stephen lowered his eyes as welling emotion threatened to overtake him. "Thank you," he muttered.

The silence sat for about three seconds. "Right," said Tony, "I've reached my emotional, touchy-feely quota for the day and I've been meaning to ask what the hell is up with that creepy doll."

"Don't hurt the doll's feelings," Clint replied. "It's magic and it could have feelings. And it might curse you."

Tony shot the doll a wary look.

Wong rolled his eyes. "Not that type of magic," he said as he collected it. "Thank you for bringing it to us; give Miss Maximoff my regards."

"Sure thing, but don't take it yet; I thought it could keep Stephen company."

Sam made a face at Clint. "Do you want him to have nightmares with that thing's face starring in all of them? I thought you wanted him to get better."

"Stephen's used to creepy things!" Clint protested. "It's comforting in its familiarity. Like, you know, people who like hairless cats."

"I'm trying to figure out why you're insulting the all-powerful wizard," Tony chimed in.

"Liking hairless cats isn't an insult," the archer retorted. "It's supposed to be high-class, I think."

As the banter continued, Stephen found it increasingly difficult to follow the conversation. Their discussion turned into a pleasant white noise as he sunk back into his pillows and closed his eyes. Eventually he fell asleep to the sound of their voices.

* * *

A few days later, Stephen's phone rang. He shifted carefully over to pick it up and glanced at the name. "Captain Rogers," he said in greeting.

"Good day, Doctor Strange. How are you doing?"

"Mostly better. I actually recognized myself in the mirror this morning."

"Always good," Steve said dryly. "Listen, I won't take up much of your time, but I thought you would be interested in knowing that we might have found something."

Stephen straightened and a serious look crossed his face. "I'm listening." From across the Sanctum's library, Wong fully looked up and removed his earbuds.

"It's not much," he prefaced, "and it's no name, but we found the documentation regarding what led to all of this." Stephen glanced at Wong, then put the phone on speaker. "A month ago HYDRA was approached by 'an interested party' hoping they could use their manpower and resources to find the location of a magical item, this 'Wand of Watoomb'. Their notes indicate that 'he said we would find it of little utility', but that they were going to see what they could do with it before handing it off to their 'client'."

He huffed softly. "Of course they would. What information did their so-called client provide?" Wong made his way over to Stephen.

"He told them that they would most likely find information in the areas of London, New York, Hong Kong, and Kathmandu, of all places." Stephen and Wong exchanged a look as Steve continued, "I assume all those places are significant to your order in some regard. Within two weeks it looks like they found a building everywhere but Kathmandu with a large circular window with a weird symbol and connected those buildings to unusual activity."

Stephen sighed. "Those are the Sanctums, yes. They're warded against magical surveillance, but it seems their wards for more mundane surveillance need to be updated in some manner."

Steve continued, "There were a couple photos of you, doctor, as well as others entering and exiting these buildings, but it does not seem you were fully tracked until two days before you were taken."

"Neelu was missing by then," he muttered to himself. Stephen pinched the bridge of his nose. "We know what happened after that," he spoke more loudly towards the phone. "Was there anything else about the man who brought the Wand to their attention in the first place?"

"I'm afraid not. There's not even a rendezvous point, just a number for a burner phone, paid in cash, that was replaced regularly. We've been waiting to see if he contacts one of them to see if we can trace it, but no luck so far."

He exhaled softly. "Thank you, Steve. I appreciate the update."

"Take care, Stephen."

After he hung up, Wong folded his arms. "There are very few people who would know of the Wand's existence, have the ability to sense the changes that came upon it from afar, and are _outside_ of the order."

Stephen grimaced. "I know; I just have a very difficult time believing Mordo could be capable of that." He ran a hand through his hair. "He was all about keeping the natural law, and whatever happened to the Wand heavily expands on the ability to do unnatural things."

"People change," he replied, "and I do not know of another outside of Kamar-Taj that would have all the information HYDRA gained. And I do not think it was one of ours."

"Neither do I," he answered, and sighed. "It seems there is little we can do on that front currently. If this is indeed Mordo pushing a more aggressive agenda…"

"We will meet it. Together."

Stephen smiled softly at his good friend and inclined his head, then sobered. "If it was him, I wonder if he realized how far they would go to achieve their goal." Neelu came to mind again.

"Who can say?"

He sighed again. "No one, I guess." Stephen rose, mindful of his healing ribs. "I need to make a visit."

"To?"

"The bluff."

A nod. "Do you want company?"

He offered a slight smile before shaking his head. "Not this time. But thank you."

* * *

Stephen lowered himself to his knees. In front of him sat the new gravestone, silent and unjudging. He placed a pair of gold earrings with garnet stones and a matching ring just before the marker. The red stones glinted softly in Tibet's early evening twilight.

"We have recovered your possessions, Neelu. Or well, Wong and the Avengers did— I'm afraid I was rather useless in that endeavour."

He exhaled and moved his thoughts from that. "Don't worry; we aren't leaving all your jewelry on your grave. Just… just these. The rest of your possessions have gone to your friends and the Hong Kong Sanctum. You never mentioned any living family; I imagine you are— were— like me, and found family within the members of the order. It's not a bad family to have."

Stephen paused to gather his thoughts. "Most of my adult life I did not understand why people would talk to gravestones— or perhaps it is better to say that I did not see what sort of comfort they gained from it. The dead cannot say anything back to us.

"Yes, I think you would smile and shake your head at that. I know better now." He glanced to the side. "You live within the memories of those you leave behind. And that's what gives you a voice." He huffed softly. "I'm digressing. What I mean to say is— whether your soul is truly gone with your life or has just 'moved on' to someplace else— whether I speak to your soul or just your memory— what I mean to say, Neelu, is that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

His words poured from him in a steady stream. "I am meant to protect the members of the order— of _our_ family— and I failed you. You needed me and I was not there. I'm so sorry. It does not— it changes nothing, but you must know that I—" His eyes dampened and he squeezed them shut. He slowly exhaled and murmured one last soft, "I'm sorry."

Around him, the last light of the sunset faded away with the passing minutes; the soft hues of gold and pink faded into an ever-deepening blue that gave way to a black night pin pricked with millions of white stars. The high winds of the bluff whipped about the sorcerer, whistling through the tall grasses a soft song uninterpretable to mortal ears. His cloak carefully curled in closer around his form as the evening grew cooler.

Eventually Stephen opened his eyes again. His gaze shone with determination and promise as he looked upon the grave. "I will do better." With that he rose. "Rest well, Neelu."

He let his quivering hand brush the stone one last time, then the Sorcerer Supreme turned his gaze away from the memories of the dead and out again to the world living beyond, the red threads of his cloak dancing in the breeze and glistening under the light of the stars.

* * *

_Thank you everyone for reading!_


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